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You have three subscription plans to select from. The Medicaid Essentials Plan, the Medicaid Business Plan and the Medicaid Business+ Plan. You enjoy unparalleled benefits for being an active member of the medical industry, you receive premium quality services by joining the online Medicaid Inner Circle™.

The Medicaid Inner Circle™ is an exclusive program provided in conjunction with Medicaid Health Finance, BPRE Real Estate, and Rainbow Digital Media. Being Medical Professionals we can offer you qualified credit advice and finance packages that are not available to the general public. You can also access the BPRE Real Estate Property HUB showcasing properties spread Australia wide.

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February 2019

Essential business attire for women.

Is the Medical Doctor's style, a matter of trust?

As a reputable Doctor, are you considered a trustworthy professional by your colleagues, peers and patients?

Regardless of profession, we all play out the sartorial ritual of considering colours, textures, and garments for work, school and play.

Clothing for doctors is more than just a matter of personal style: it is an emblem of their speciality, training and culture. In some cases, a physician’s attire is functional. A surgeon’s scrubs protect regular clothes from stains and patients from infection. Sometimes, it’s about creating a good first impression and projecting the more professional, conservative image often associated with medicine.

Go to a doctor’s office, for instance, and you’re more likely to find physicians donning a shirt and tie, or jacket and blouse when interacting with their patients. In almost all of these cases, the emblematic uniform of physicians – the white coat – is present and despite clear patient preferences about what doctors wear while working, even the top-ranked hospitals in the nation, only a handful offer formal guidance on attire. Many vaguely recommend that clothes be “professional,” but without defining what professional means?

In 21 of those studies, we found that patients had strong preferences about what physicians wore. And it looks like patients more often prefer for their doctors to wear formal clothing and white lab coats than not. Indeed, in 18 of the studies we reviewed, patients had a preference or positive association with this style of attire.

But as we reviewed these studies, three keys themes that suggest important variations in what patients may prefer their doctors to wear emerged. First, studies involving older patients or those from Europe or Asia all reported higher satisfaction when physicians wore formal attire.

Second, in an emergency, surgical or intensive care settings, scrubs were not only preferred by patients but also more often equated with professionalism. This makes sense, as in these more “hands-on,” procedure-oriented settings, formal suits, shirts and ties clearly seem out of place.

Finally, in doctors’ offices and outpatient clinics, scrubs were viewed unfavourably and often resulted in negative impressions. Thus, from the patient’s perspective, a “one size fits all” approach may not work for doctor attire. Rather, the context in which a patient interacts with their doctor influences what they expect to see.

What best practices can we recommend, especially for those that are entering as new residents?

When in doubt, formal attire with long-sleeved shirts and ties and jackets for men, and business attire for women, curating an office wardrobe with authority workwear pieces from the corporate to the creative, set the tone for a smart and stylish look that should prevail in nonemergency or nonoperative settings.

Yet few doctors or medical students consider the first impression they make on patients. And clothes have a lot to do with that. In an informal survey in our hospital, only two out of 30 medical students said that they actually thought about their dress when caring for hospitalised patients. Yet, over half of the medical students, we spoke to agreed that what they wear is likely to influence patient opinions about their doctors. This illustrates a larger discrepancy between what doctors ought to wear and what they do wear – one that may arise from competing concerns or lack of guidance.

Formal attire with long-sleeved shirts, jackets and ties for men.

Success is built upon trust

This practice should hold true not just for weekdays, but also when physicians are working weekends and after typical business hours. Patients and their expectations remain unchanged, regardless of the hour or day.

While scrubs are appropriate for operating or emergency rooms, we suggest changing into more formal attire to visit patients in the hospital or the clinic. Regardless of the occasion, flip-flops, showy jewellery or jeans simply don’t belong in the hospital, just as scrubs do not belong outside the hospital environment. Especially not in the grocery store.

Making a good first impression

Today's doctor needs to market themselves to the highest standard. First impressions are lasting experiences.

Studies have also shown that casually dressed physicians are less trusted by their patients than the sharpest looking medical professionals and dentists fall into the same category. Studies have also revealed that new or newly renovated clinics or surgeries sporting the latest modern equipment score very high on peoples mind when visiting a doctor or a dentist.

Your presentation cements the trust factor between patient and doctor. Everything contributes to the trust factor from a sharply styled themed website to a smart business card to promotional brochures to email marketing campaigns to doctor's own business apps to keep their patients up to date with the latest news on medical advancements, this further builds on the trust factor.

How can we at Medicaid help you?

At Medicaid Health Finance we won't tell you what to wear or how to wear it or where to buy it, that is not within the scope of our services ... the Medicaid Inner Circle™ program has been designed purposely to support professional medical workers to stand out from their competitors to achieve better business outcomes in growing their business by using the alliance partnership with the Medicaid Inner Circle™ range of offers, products and services to complement and enhance their practice business proposition. Every product and service offered within the Inner Circle program provides outstanding value and real benefits. In fact, by using our services you'll get your annual subscription back many times over every year in real dollar value.

The Medicaid Inner Circle™ services can provide you with sustainable strategies that help your business innovate and grow while helping you reduce costs, minimise your tax liability payable, increase income, you can also access the No Cost PricingMedical Equipment Plan through market leading manufacturers and suppliers, grow your business through appropriate qualified credit advice to maximise cash flows and preserve your capital to leveraging in winning new business by implementing our essential services to give you the edge and the agility and creativity to respond to the rapidly changing medical business environments.

Contributing Authors

Vineet Chopra - Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan and Sanjay Saint - Professor of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan

Disclosure statement

Authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

What we do

At Medicaid Finance we are dedicated to delivering only premium quality and comprehensive financial services designed for healthcare professionals that are not readily available to the general public.

As a Medical Professional, you have worked hard to earn your distinguished reputation and status within your general community, banks recognise this and will offer you favourable terms and conditions when sourcing financial services.

At Medicaid Finance we have a professional team to assist you in merging our advice model with a wide-ranging service spectrum from personal, commercial and business finance encompassing our exclusive Medicaid Inner Circle subscription program delivering money saving value services.